A United Nations appeals court has cut seven years from the 27-year sentence of a Bosnian Serb army officer convicted of being a key figure in the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslims in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica.
Momir Nikolic (51) who was a security and intelligence officer at Srebrenica in July 1995, pleaded guilty in 2003 to one count of persecution as part of a plea bargain. In exchange, prosecutors dropped four other charges, including genocide.
The appeals court dismissed most of Nikolic's 12 grounds for appeal, but faulted the lower court for three errors, including the failure to give him enough credit for cooperating with UN prosecutors.
Nikolic was the first Serb officer to confess to his role in the mass murder and to publicly tell the story of Srebrenica from the side of the officers who oversaw Europe's worst civilian massacre since World War II.
The war crimes tribunal, handing down a harsh sentence nearly three years ago, cited the gravity of Nikolic's crimes against helpless civilians. It also noted his commanding role in supervising the transfer of civilians to places where they were executed and then trying to cover up evidence of the crime.
Nikolic already has testified in the trial of his former commanders, Vidoje Blagojevic, who was convicted of complicity in genocide, and Dragan Jokic, convicted on lesser charges.
He could be an important prosecution witness if Ratko Mladic, the fugitive commander of the Bosnian Serb forces at Srebrenica, is ever brought to trial.
Mladic is one of the tribunal's most wanted men, and authorities in Serbia are under intense pressure to arrest and surrender him to The Hague. The EU council of ministers has set a March 31 deadline for Belgrade to extradite him or face possible suspension of talks on building closer ties with the 25-nation bloc.